Mission to Pluto: New Horizons

[Polar Maritime]

Amazing!   A great feat. Roll on (fingers crossed) for the high resolution images later.

[Mokidugway]

It's a pretty little world:)..

[Weather-history]

Neptune's moon Triton. I can see some similarities

[Weather-history]

False colour images of Pluto and Charon

[Weather-history]

Lol

http://mobile.twitter.com/9GAG/status/621024811221790720/photo/1

[Mokidugway]

Thank god it's not Uranus :0.......

[Methuselah]

Thank god it's not Uranus :0.......

Recent studies have shown there are, indeed, rings around Uranus!

Lol

http://mobile.twitter.com/9GAG/status/621024811221790720/photo/1

I'm so glad I'm not on Twatter!

[Steve C]

Great news that contact re-established.

 

Looking forward to the first close up picture later today.

[Dancerwithwings]

What is the weather like on Pluto, methane snow and winter last's for 100 years 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/33528733

 

Edited July 15, 2015 by Dancerwithwings

[Methuselah]

What is the weather like on Pluto, methane snow and winter last for 100 years 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/33528733

 

Even Piers Corbyn and 'Big Joe' will get that one right? Right?

[Boro Snow]

The First Hi-res pic of Pluto causing some concern         

[Mokidugway]

So pluto's a planet ??

[stewfox]

So pluto's a planet ??image.jpg

 

Is there a suggestion its a little larger then thought ?

 

Me thinks once a planet always a planet

[Weather-history]

We come a long way from Clyde Tombaugh's photographic discovery of Pluto

Edited July 15, 2015 by Weather-history

[Dancerwithwings]

BBC NEWS 24 LIVE MARYLAND IMAGES COMING UP

Edited July 15, 2015 by Dancerwithwings

[Mokidugway]

We come a long way from Clyde Tombaugh's photographic discovery of Pluto

Clive Tombaugh used to wear his trousers up to his armpits !!!.

[Dancerwithwings]

BBC NEWS 24 LIVE MARYLAND IMAGES COMING UP

zzzzzZZZZZ  too much of this    hurry up!!!!

[Weather-history]

Charon

[Beverley Lass]

 

A nice close-up 

[Polar Maritime]

What could have caused 11000 ft (3500 m) high mountains on Pluto?

 

New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.

 

The mountains likely formed no more than 100 million years ago -- mere youngsters relative to the 4.56-billion-year age of the solar system -- and may still be in the process of building, says Jeff Moore of New Horizons’ Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI). That suggests the close-up region, which covers less than one percent of Pluto’s surface, may still be geologically active today.

 

Moore and his colleagues base the youthful age estimate on the lack of craters in this scene. Like the rest of Pluto, this region would presumably have been pummeled by space debris for billions of years and would have once been heavily cratered -- unless recent activity had given the region a facelift, erasing those pockmarks.

 

“This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the solar system,†says Moore.  

 

More here; https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-icy-mountains-of-pluto 

Edited July 15, 2015 by Polar Maritime

[Weather-history]

Ice volcanoes on Pluto? Believed to be an icy bed rock.

Wow!

[Methuselah]

What could have caused 11000 ft (3500 m) high mountains on Pluto?

An impact - because it's so small, and has a weak gravitational field, a pile of rock just didn't sink towards the centre-of-mass?

Ice volcanoes on Pluto? Believed to be an icy bed rock.

Wow!

It just gets better Mr D!

[Weather-history]

I wonder what he would he would have thought about some of his ashes flying by the planet he discovered and out into the Kuiper Belt?

The heart shaped region on Pluto has been named after him.

[Weather-history]

[Daniel*]

As a kid I always associated Pluto to be ash like but far from it a nice sandstone tinge very likely something you'd imagine in Star Wars what is evident is the lack of craters the surface is supposedly still active geologically and regenerating due to some sort of processes I cannot fathom. If it was a Planet it would be my my favourite one, it's a beautiful sight. To think how far we've come since 1930.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Daniel*